In this lesson Tris Hussey talks about how you're going to use Foursquare most of the time—your mobile device. He covers the official apps and mobile website here. The apps that other people have created can have varying degrees of quality, so they are something you should use at your own risk.

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Getting the Right App for Your Device

Now that you have your Foursquare account and a few friends, it's time to start using Foursquare for real. If there's one thing that I find odd about Foursquare it's that Foursquare is the only social media tool/service that I know of where you can do less on the website through your computer than you can do on your mobile device. At first, this really, really didn't make sense to me. Why can't I check in on the website? I'm in my local coffee place, I'm already mayor here (more about this in Lesson 5), what's the deal?!

The deal is that while Foursquare could use the Google Maps API to have its main site find out where you are, it doesn't want to go in that direction right now. The game is about being out and about, not checking in with your laptop.

NOTE

"Wait, my iPad and iPod Touch knows where I am! I use Google Maps all the time with these devices that have only Wi-Fi!" Yes, I know. Those devices, and the iOS apps they run, are designed to tap into the location services in a device so that it knows where it is. Through the same process, you can check into locations with your laptop and the mobile website. Foursquare doesn't encourage people to do this because it can be used to cheat and game the system. However, yes, technically, you can check in using your laptop and the mobile website URL.

Plain English: API

API stands for application programming interface. When people create new sites such as Foursquare, Twitter, and even Facebook, the developers of the sites provide a way for programmers to build upon what the sites have already built. This is done by providing a set of programming rules and tools that connect to the site and dictate how it works. With these tools, other programmers can build on and expand what the site originally developed and create new programs and services from them. These rules are called the API.

Essentially, a lot of what we use online today is built on pulling together the APIs, or sets of programming codes, from a variety of services and tools. The Connect to Facebook and Connect to Twitter buttons you saw when setting up your account work because they use the APIs from those services.

So, if you can't check in at the main website, what's it good for? The website is really the hub of it all. Although you can't use it to check in, you can use it for a number of tasks:

Adding a tip about a venue or location

Adding a new location

Managing your friends

Reviewing your check-in history

Checking out your check-in statistics

Editing venues

Connecting your account to Twitter or Facebook

For the most important part of Foursquare, checking in, you need to have some kind of mobile, Internet-capable device (smart phone, cell phone, tablet, and so on). Like Twitter, Foursquare is, at its heart, a mobile application. It's a tool you use on the go (or going). Foursquare has done a great job of covering the major smart phones (iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices) with native applications; you can also use Foursquare on any other devices that can get on the Internet with a mobile browser. For users in the United States, you can also use SMS short codes to check in. So, although the main website seems like a little "meh, so what," it's still important to know how the system works.

Plain English: SMS

SMS stands for Short Message Service and is essentially synonymous with sending a text message on your cell phone. Technically there are other ways to send a text message from your phone, but SMS is the most common, and it's what most carriers use today.